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From Government to Opposition: The Rural Settlement Movements of the Israel Labor Party in the Wake of the Election of 1977

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Neal Sherman
Affiliation:
Settlement Study CenterRehovot, Israel

Extract

The “Upheaval” (mahapach) of May 1977 brought to an end forty-four years of Labor hegemony in the international institutions of the Zionist movement and twenty-nine years of Labor dominance in the political institutions of the State of Israel. In the wake of the 1977 election, the Israel Labor Party found itself forced into the unfamiliar role of opposition–and with it the rural settlement movements associated with the party.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

NOTES

Author's Note. The research on which this paper is based was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation, received through the Israel Foundations Trustees. I wish to express my gratitude to these institutions.

I would also like to express my thanks to Professor Dov Weintraub of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and the participants of the Settlement Study Centre staff seminar for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

1 Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1963), p. 308.Google Scholar For use of the concept of dominant party in analyses of the Israel Labor Party and its predecessors see Shapiro, Yonathan, The Formative Years of the Israeli Labour Party (London: Sage, 1976), pp. 231264;Google ScholarArian, Alan and Barnes, Samuel H., “The Dominant Party System: A Neglected Model of Democratic Stability,” Journal of Politics, 36, 3 (08 1974), 592614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For the organizational “genealogy” of the Israel Labor Party, see Aronoff, Myron J., Power and Ritual in the Israel Labor Party (Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1977), pp. 1925.Google Scholar For overviews of party-settlement movement relations, see Medding, Peter Y., Mapai in Israel: Political Organization and Government in a New Society (London: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 2245;Google ScholarWeintraub, Dov, Lissak, Moshe, and Azmon, Yael, Moshava, Kibbutz and Moshav (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), chapters 6, 7.Google Scholar

3 Shapira, Anita, Futile Struggle (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1973) [Hebrew].Google Scholar

4 Ibid., pp. 183–185, 204; Shapiro, , Formative Years of Israeli Labour Party, pp. 218225, 231–238.Google Scholar

5 Gorni, Yosef, Achdut Ha'avoda 1919–1930 (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1973),Google Scholar Chapter 4 [Hebrew] Shavit, Yaakov, From Majority to State (Tel Aviv: Yariv, Hadar, 1978), chapter 7 [Hebrew].Google Scholar

6 Kimmerling, Baruch, “Sovereignty, Ownership, and ‘Presence’ in the Jewish-Arab Territorial Conflict,” Comparative Political Studies, 10, 2 (07, 1977), 155176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 For an analysis of the argument over the future of the territories, see Isaac, Rael J., Israel Divided (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1976).Google Scholar

8 See Lissak, Moshe, “Patterns of Change in Ideology and Class Structure in Israel,” Jewish Journal of Sociology, 7, 1 (06 1965), 4662;Google ScholarArian, Alan, Ideological Change in Israel (Cleveland: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1966), pp. 91 ff.;Google ScholarEtzioni-Halevy, Eva with Shapira, Rina, Political Culture in Israel (New York: Praeger, 1977), pp. 3–9, 22–24, 62–66, 176178.Google Scholar

9 See Willner, Dorothy, Nation Building and Community in Israel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

10 Lifshitz, E., “Dance of the Radish, Dance of the Carrot, ” Ha'aretz, 12 18, 1977, p. 10 [Hebrew];Google ScholarBen-Meir, A., “The Facts as They Are in Agriculture Today,” Davar, 10 30, 1978, p. 8 [Hebrew].Google Scholar

11 “Ben-Gurion was Privileged To Proclaim Independence; But There Is No Foundation to the Claim That He Founded the State,” Yediot Ahronot, 04 11, 1979, p. 1 [Hebrew].Google Scholar

12 “Who Established the State?,” Davar, 04 20, 1979, p. 13 [Hebrew].Google Scholar

13 See, e.g., Elon, Amos, ‘Back from the Cold, with Clear-Sighted Eyes,’ Ha'aretz, 10 6, 1978, p. 13 [Hebrew];Google ScholarEvron, B., “Twilight of the Settlement Myth,” Yediot Ahronot, 10 1, 1978, p. 27 [Hebrew].Google Scholar

14 Sherman, Neal, “ ‘Organizational Encapsulation’ and Voting Patterns in Israel's Rural Sector” (manuscript, Rehovot: Settlement Study Centre, 1980).Google Scholar

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16 The late Yigal Alon, author of the “Alon Plan” and Foreign Minister in the last ILP government, was a member of one of the settlements of Hakibbutz Hame'uhad.

17 Interviews: Yaakov Tzur, Secretary/Hakibbutz Hame'uhad, November 23, 1977; Moshe Harif, Secretary/Ihud Hakvutzot V'hakibbutzim, November 17, 1977.

18 Medding, , Mapai in Israel, p. 24.Google Scholar